From the Field:
A familiar face.
By Andria Barrett
'From the field' articles chronicle the adventures, difficulties, and hard-earned insights that come with doing fieldwork in the remote and wild Northwoods.
This past winter, I spent many hours going through trail camera footage to organize the thousands of videos collected across the Greater Voyageurs Ecosystem (GVE). Although the work can feel mundane at times—I've watched more hours of snowshoe hares eating vegetation than I can count—trail camera footage provides a valuable dataset on wolves and other wildlife in the GVE.
After watching countless hours of footage, individual wolves start to stand out and become more recognizable. One wolf, in particular, always caught my attention: Wolf Y1T, the breeding male of the Blood Moon Pack. Wolf Y1T was tall and striking, often seen traveling alongside his much smaller mate, Wolf Y5E.
Image of Wolf Y1T captured on one of our trail cameras in early 2022 showing his unique and striking coat coloration.
The Blood Moon Pack has always been a small pack and in 2024, the pack was just a breeding pair. Despite being a breeding male, he has never successfully raised pups to adulthood. In fact, during the spring of 2024, I discovered one of his deceased pups while doing fieldwork. In the winters, Wolves Y1T and Y5E often left their territories and headed to an area where deer congregate in winter about 10 miles south of their territory. The pair would make jaunts back to their primary territory periodically in winters, as if to make sure no other wolves tried to occupy it while they were away.
On a rainy day in November 2024, I wrapped up my last day of fieldwork for the 2024 field season. The next day I headed home for a few months before returning for the winter field season. I was southbound on the main highway in the area, when I rounded a bend and had to slam on my brakes. There, standing in the middle of the road, was a tall wolf with yellow ear-tags—Wolf Y1T.
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We stared at each other for a few seconds before he slipped down the bank and into the woods. I was ecstatic to see one of our collared wolves in person, and not just on my computer screen. Seeing wolves in person in the GVE is always a special feeling, because they often go undetected in the dense boreal ecosystem. I didn’t know it then, but this wouldn’t be the last time Wolf Y1T and I crossed paths.
Wolf Y1T after we originally collared him in 2022. He is still waking up from sedation in this picture, allowing us to document his distinctive face and body markings!
After a few months away, I was finally back in the GVE for the winter field season in early January 2025. During January, we reviewed trail camera footage from the previous fall to glean any insights. While reviewing the footage, we noticed something new: Y1T was now limping and no longer using one of his back legs. Earlier videos showed him moving normally, so this injury appeared recent.
The footage offered no clues as to how it happened, but injuries like this are not uncommon for wild wolves, and we’ve seen individuals recover from broken limbs before. Despite this, Y1T continued to appear on our trail cameras for the duration of the winter (wolves are fairly mobile even on 3 legs!).
One afternoon in January, after nearly six hours of going through camera footage, I happened to glance out the window and froze. It wasn’t the icy landscape that captured me, but the familiar silhouette of a wolf standing in the yard. A mixture of shock and awe hit me all at once as I slowly got up out of my chair for a closer look. The wolf was tall, had a light stripe on his back, and was limping.
A cell phone image of Wolf Y1T in the driveway that Andria was able to capture.
I instantly knew who it was: Wolf Y1T was now standing in the yard, looking towards the window where I was. I made sure to not make any sudden movements as I pulled out my phone to take a quick video. Y1T wandered through the yard and down the driveway, stopping every so often to look around. When he turned towards the woods, I caught the flash of his yellow ear tags. The same wolf I had seen once before, and countless times on my computer screen, was now standing just outside of the window.
I was ecstatic. After sending the video to the team, I returned to watching trail camera footage, glancing out the window from time to time, hopeful to see Y1T staring back at me again. As the day went on, I couldn't help but smile. I was very grateful for two unexpected encounters with a wolf I had observed so often in trail camera footage.
The breeding female of the Blood Moon Pack, Y5E, pauses along a frozen beaver pond in front of a trail camera.
Little did I know at the time, Wolf Y1T was about to experience a substantial change. On January 29, the Blood Moon Pack made another long foray south of their territory, except this time, Wolf Y5E would not be returning.
The Blood Moon Pack encountered the Biondich Pack, who occupied this southerly area, and the Biondich Pack killed Wolf Y5E. Wolves killing each other like this is one of the most common natural causes of mortality in wild wolves. After the death of his mate, Wolf Y1T was a lone wolf for a bit. However, just a month later, we captured footage of him in and around the Blood Moon territory traveling with two other wolves in the GVE. We continued to observe him for the rest of the winter with 1-2 other wolves.
That is, despite the death of his mate, the Blood Moon Pack persisted.
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A recent trail camera capture of Wolf Y1T on August 23rd, 2025 traveling through the former Windsong Pack's territory. Before this footage, we were unsure if Y1T was still in the study area let alone still alive!
Videos Andria captured of Y1T.
Wolf Y1T hanging out on the driveway of our project's headquarters. We live and do our work right in the middle of several wolf pack territories!
About the author:
ANDRIA BARRETT has worked as a Wolf Predation and Research Technician with the Voyageurs Wolf Project for the past two years. Growing up in Minnesota, Andria was fortunate to spend most of her childhood exploring the Northwoods of Minnesota and Wisconsin. Andria graduated from Winona State University in 2023 where she studied Biology/Ecology. Before working for VWP, she worked for the Forest Service in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, and as a boreal bird technician in Northern Wisconsin.